Recipes

Bakels welcome students in partnership with The Worshipful Company of Bakers

The Bakels Baking Centre once again hosts students preparing to be part of tomorrow’s baking industry a Bakery Training Course supported by a bursary from the Worshipful Company of Bakers. Participants came from across the United Kingdom to attend for an insightful mix of technical demonstrations, applications and practical sessions. A tour of Bakels manufacturing site was also included.

The three-day course, held in September, was designed to not only equip students with the technical knowledge and applications expertise required for today’s bakery market, but to expose them to the process by which productsmake their way from idea creation through to bakery shelves.

Focus on trends

At Bakels, trends in the market form the foundation of new product development, ensuring customers and consumers get the products they want. Findings from a fruitful London Bakery Tour study by the Bakels team, coupled with a tour by the students of local retail bakery outlets at the start of the course helped them evaluate the current UK bakery market.

These trends would assist in a product launch task set for the students as part of the course. Concepts were drafted, applications tested and presentations, including a full launch proposal, made to a panel comprised of the Master of the Worshipful Company of Bakers and Bakels staff. This process gave all a flavour of the key stages of successfully launching a product to market.

The Baking Centre provided the perfect setting to allow students to create and deliver their ideas, the very facility used by many of Bakels’ customers for live product development and launches.

Sourdough perfection with Pascal

Swiss Master Baker Pascal Hürlimann was on hand from Bakels Nutribake in Switzerland to deliver a masterclass in sourdough. His session provided students with the technical knowledge and practical skills required for sourdough production.

The importance of the baking process of sourdough breads was demonstrated by Pascal, coupled with students getting hands-on experience to strengthen their skills and deepen their knowledge.

Since sourdough is used to enhance flavour, the full range of Fermdor sourdoughs were exhibited, showcasing a range of bespoke flavour profiles which can be achieved to suit local tastes, in not only breads, but a wide variety of other food categories.

Tech talk

Sessions on bread theory, cake and confectionery mixes rounded off the technical presentations, giving students the foundations to bakery science and application, along with tips on how to ensure high quality goods time-after-time.

The journey from manufacturing to consumers’ baskets can take on a variety of different channels, each of which requires different product and packaging formats. This was to attendees, who had a mix of desired career paths in the industry.

A taste of the action

Following the technical presentations delivered by a team of food scientists and applications specialists, students were introduced to British Bakels’ large scale manufacturing operation. Being exposed to all areas of the business, from manufacturing processes to Near Infra-Red quality control, allowed students to gain an understanding of how a large ingredients manufacturer operates.

The future

The course comes as Bakels continue to invest in tomorrow’s baking industry, educating up and coming individuals, many of whom have already started their career in baking at craft bakeries across the country.

The three-day course demonstrated how a bakery ingredients manufacturer operates and assisted the students with employability tips to help them secure a career in the industry.

The course was concluded with presentation of certificates to the students by present Master of the Worshipful Company of Bakers, Stephen Kramer.